Friday, January 15, 2010

Be Proud...

of me...I am. I spent a nice, BIG chunk of the day tinkering around under the Blazer with Dad. Okay, we weren't tinkering. It seemed, at first glance, to be a simple job. Shimmy the starter. Sure, simple. NOT!

For some reason, GM decided sometime back to make the engines of its vehicles something akin to a bajillion piece jigsaw puzzle. Now Pop's worked on GM cars (for GM) my whole life up until about 12yrs or so ago when he retired. So neither of us was expecting the challenge that faced us today.

Out came the first bolt...feel free to stop here if you've done this before, because I'm sure you know what's coming next....loosened bolt two...couldn't get the shimmy in because of the angle of the starter to the other hunks of metal and exhaust. Stand back, take a look...we both shook our heads. Yep, you got it. Off came the wheel and wheel well (hey, look...my firewall and parts of the wheel well are crumbling). Which of course meant out came the battery, off came the computer and coolant tank. Finally, enough wiggle room to get the damn shimmy in. 20 minutes of shimmy shamming later...kaboom! Hook up the battery and test it out.

Shimmy is good, but the solenoid is bad. Go figure. Funny that it took way less time to put back together than it took to take it apart. I think the Blazer lost about 5lbs of weight from the amount of sand that came spilling out from the wheel well though...wonder exactly what the previous owners did with this thing, but I'm pretty damn sure that taking care of it was not on the list.

So, here we go...one more thing on the to fix list for the Blazer. One more thing that Pops and myself will not be doing. I'm taking the beast to a mechanic, soon as I gather enough $$ to be sure I can cover the massive bill. Have mercy...wonder what I did to piss of the Fates?

4 comments:

Ah yes, shimming GM starters... Went through that hell with The Beast's old 454. Still not done really, got the old starter wedged out with a piece of 2x2, haven't gone to get the NEW new starter yet, been too busy. GM engines last forever, GM starters suck. GM engineers should be shot....

So I've notice Mabe. This thing is really a good vehicle, just needs a little work...good thing it's that time of year where a little extra $$ comes in so I can do that (once all the bills are done and the only debt left is of the student loan variety). Once all these little and not-so-little things are fixed, the Blazer will be a great mode of transport...already in love with the 4WD...yes, I am.

Well HJ...IF Dad had not been so darn contrary back in Dec. when the temps were still good (before that massive Arctic front) it wouldn't have been quite so bad. As it was the temps dropped on us pretty quick when the putting it all back together part rolled around.

We made it, but I was cold clear up until this afternoon from that adventure...probably didn't help the ground was still wet from melting snow!

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